phil jacobsen

Slots of Fun

Mailboxes come in all shapes and sizes. Some mailboxes are shaped like fish with one enlarged pectoral fin that is raised when there is outgoing mail. To open the box, I have to grab the fishhook coming out of the trout’s mouth and then put the mail in the box like I’m making a dinner called, “Presorted Standard Stuffed Trout.”

Some mailboxes have personality, like the mailbox that has the words “Thank You,” written under the lid. I treat this mailbox with great personification courtesy when I walk away, saying, “You’re welcome.”

I happily give the mailboxes that say, “No Junk Mail!!!!” the most junk. If I know one of these mailboxes is approaching, I even deliver mail I’ve saved from vacant houses. Then I walk away thinking, “Sort your own mail; I’m not your secretary.” Some people think they are being crafty by leaving their mailbox lid down knowing that once the mail is delivered the mailman will close the lid. I close the lid; it’s my job. Just know that on the day when your order from Shutterfly arrived and there was six inches of snow piled up on your open lid, I was just doing my job when I covered your photos in an avalanche of snow.

I hate slots. Slots on the door, slots on the house, slots hidden in ivy, slots are not lots of fun. A mailman only has one hand that can open or shut a mailbox, the other hand is holding all of the mail for your neighbors. Slots on a door usually require me to rearrange the mail I’m holding in one hand to try and pry open the slot on your door.

In order to turn a negative into a positive, I have learned how to have fun with slots. On the days when all of the advertisements are delivered (which more and more seem like everyday), instead of shoving all of your mail through the door in one tight bundle, I stagger the load. If I hold onto the cover of a magazine or outer-page of advertisements, I can make the mail appear to look like a small nuclear explosion when it comes blasting through the slot in your door.

Slots also hide dogs. Just like every fourth grade teacher seems to have a story that says, “I know someone who once lost an eye doing that,” every mailman has heard a story about the woman who “lost her finger delivering mail.” As the story is told, this postal carrier delivered the mail through a slot on a door, and as her finger entered the house when it crossed the plane of the door, a dog on the other side took first class care of her index finger. This is why when I hear a dog barking when I deliver mail through a slot, I move the mail around like an invading creature until the dog attacks the mail. This game is really fun on the days when I deliver checks.

Yeah, it even seems strange to me that I like or hate a house simply by judging the size and location of the mailbox. I guess, just like mailboxes, mailmen come in all shapes and sizes, too. My shape is passive aggressive: handle with care.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow. I hate you, Tomorrow.

There is a saying at the Post Office that no matter how bad of a day you’re having, one day it will be worse. In a way this is reassuring. There are days when everything seems to go wrong—the truck gets a flat tire or you get bit by a dog. Luckily, there’s always tomorrow.

One day I slipped on some ice then tripped over a curb and landed on a package marked “Fragile.” This gift had traveled all the way from South Carolina, intact and in one piece, my fellow postal carriers had respected the red “fragile” tag on this balloon and candle wrapped box. Then I blew the handoff. Three doors down from the birthday girl’s house her glass ballerina or Tickle Me Elmo Crystal was reduced to fragments. I was tempted to write, “Open with Band-aids” on this box, instead I ripped off the stamps, pulled out a marker, and wrote “UPS.” That’s what a brown Sharpee did for me.

While this may have been that girl’s worst birthday gift from her South Carolinian aunt, this wasn’t my worst day.

I thought my worst day was when I was sitting alone in my truck, organizing the mail and passing the gas, when someone I hadn’t seen was standing at the truck door wondering if I had their check. “Even mailmen fart,” was all I could think to say. I still don’t know what this meant, but I do know this was just embarrassing and not a bad day.

This has now become such a common experience it’s no longer even embarrassing. If I’m bored at work and need to talk to someone, all I have to do is fart in my truck, and I’m guaranteed to get company. It’s like people are like dogs, but instead of responding to a silent, high-pitched whistle, they only approach when I’ve called out with a silent but deadly smell.

I’ve been caught peeing in a cup in the back of my truck and I’ve had a cat run up my leg to get away from the dog that then bit me. Once a man said he was going to kill me, and on that day I said, “Please do. It only gets worse from here.”

He let me live and today I accidentally discharged all of my pepper spray when I leaned against the seat belt buckle. I had to clean out the truck and wash my eyes and this put me behind schedule. In fact, I was so late that I had to use my headlamp to cut through the dark and to deliver the mail; I thought this was a bad day. But I tried not to complain, because I knew one day it could be worse. Twenty minutes later when my light broke, it got worse.

I wasn’t surprised that the light broke. I was staring at the mail and the bright light that was reflected off the white envelopes was all my pupils could focus on. I did not see the steps until I fell down and my head hit on the sidewalk. Actually, my head didn’t directly hit the sidewalk, the headlamp cushioned the impact by shattering like a little girl’s birthday gift on my forehead. I picked up as much of the mail as I could find, but now out of order and covered in blood, it was difficult to deliver in the dark.

So far, this was my worst day. Luckily, there’s always tomorrow.

Kids

The kids asked if I had some candy. I let them know I was a stranger, and they shouldn’t ask for candy from me. They said that I wasn’t a stranger, because I was their mailman, so they asked for candy again. I wasn’t their mailman; I’m not anyone’s mailman; I’m everyone’s mailman.

Every day I deliver a different route, if these kids were strangers to me, then I was a stranger to them and the first rule of thumb in preventing kids from being abducted or molested is #1: Don’t take candy from strangers.

If their mothers hadn’t taught them this lesson, then I figured I should. So I explained to the kids that since I wasn’t their regular mailman I didn’t have any candy. However, tomorrow, I knew their regular mailman would be working and at the office we called him, “Willie Wonka.” He carries more candy than Mr. Hershey and Mr. Goodbar combined. If, I said to them, they could wait until tomorrow, they would get more candy from their mailman than they could collect in five days worth of Halloweens.

Three houses later, I forgot about these kids.

Two months later, I returned back to this office where I was welcomed by one of the mailmen as, “Are you the mother fucker who told the kids I was Willie Wonka?”

Kids just don’t appreciate sarcasm.

A couple of weeks before Christmas I was walking back to my truck and a different group of kids came up to me and asked if I had delivered any packages to their house. Where do you live, I asked them? They said they lived in the last house on the right hand side of the street. This is the house where the sidewalk was covered in snow, even though the last storm was days ago. This is the same house where I knew I’d delivered plenty of past due notices for phone bills, electricity and a cancellation notice from Playboy Magazine.

The chances that these kids were going to get more than an orange and/or a used doll from Goodwill for Christmas was more likely than them actually being delivered a package or gift in the mail. I figured their life was one full of disappointment with little more than poverty and drugs in their future. I knew I could change all that if even for a brief moment in their life.

Yes, I said to these kids, the last house on the right I left two boxes from Toys R Us and another smaller box from Nintendo, I think that one said, ‘Weeeee!”

And that’s exactly how these kids left me, running down the street happy and excited yelling, “Weee!” It was a long block, and for a few minutes in their life, I saw true happiness. That moment of running had to have been more exciting than their future disappointing Christmas morning.

I returned to this office today to deliver mail. I’d forgotten about the joy I’d put on those kids faces that day in December. But, today, their regular mailman asked if I was that mother fucker who told those crying kids they had gifts from Toys R Us.

Yeah, that was me. But I knew I would make it all better. Today I told those kids that tomorrow they will get lots of candy.

If You Only Knew

Some people get so angry. They’re not mad about Haiti or the Senate race in Massachusetts. They don’t reach their boiling point because they only have .87 cents in their pockets when ordering from the dollar menu at McDonalds. Nope, if you really want to see someone lose their ordinarily cool, deliver a letter to the Johnson’s at the Smith’s residence.

The next day this letter will be placed in the mailbox with a scrawl across the envelope that reads, “Delivered to wrong address!!!!” Depending on how often the Johnson’s get the Smith’s mail is generally in direct proportion to the amount of exclamation marks on the envelope.

I like to play a game called, “More Exclamation Marks.” Usually when someone writes “Delivered to the wrong address” on an envelope, what they actually mean is “I’m sorry Mr. Postman, but this is the Johnson residence, and the Smith’s moved away last month. I understand the confusion—especially since we still have the Smith’s name on our mailbox. Please forward this letter.” However, since they wrote “Delivered to wrong address,” I check the address, see that it is correct and place it back in the mailbox.

The next day let the exclamation fireworks commence with a grand finale explosion of ALL CAPS!!!!!

Last week I had a guy chase me down the street because his name was not “Current Resident.” I really wish I was making this up and that Mr. Darwin was correct in deducing that people like Mr. Resident should no longer be living, but here was this man who single-handedly proved evolution does have its exceptions.

Speaking of exceptions, what would you do if you came up to a mailbox that read, “Except mail for Garcia, Stevens and Probst.” This statement left me frozen on the porch like I was pondering the sound—or lack of sound—of a tree falling in the forest. Do I only give them mail addressed to everyone “except” those three names? Or, if they meant “accept” instead of “except” did they also misspell the last names of the people who lived there? The next day, written on an envelope with a record number of exclamation marks, I deduced they meant “accept.”

So, what to do? If the people who lived in your house before you moved in were not very diligent in submitting a change of address, there is a postal secret. First: Write your name on your mailbox. Don’t put your name under the lid, because once the lid has been raised, the mail is going in. Write your name clearly on the outside of your mailbox with this secret word, “only.”

“Only” is the best word in a mailman’s vocabulary. “Only” means you have had problems getting mail that wasn’t yours. “Only” means please double check the mail. If you only have your name on the mailbox, this is a good first step, but this is only a good starting point. If I see “Smith” on a mailbox, but two letters are addressed to “Miller,” I’ll deliver both names. If I see “Smith—Only” on a mailbox, then the Miller’s mail will get returned to sender.

Next week’s lesson: Why Mr. Miller got so angry when he moved into the Smith’s basement!!!!!!!!!

Blackie 1. Postman 0.

Blackie waits for me every day. I hate Blackie. Every time I deliver this route I forget about Blackie, but Blackie never forgets about me. Blackie hides behind her doghouse, she doesn’t eat in the daylight, because the mailman comes when the sun is shining. Blackie only shits in the dark and pisses when the moon rises, because when it’s daylight all Blackie wants to do is jump over the fence and bite me. Thoughts of nutrition are secondary to scaring the mailman. Most of the time she leaps out from behind her doghouse with a vicious bark behind the fence just to watch me say, “Oh Shit,” but sometimes she jumps over the fence and then I say, “Oh Fuck.” Today, I remembered Blackie.

Even though this is the seventh time I’ve carried this route, I’ve forgotten about Blackie four times. The first time I didn’t know about Blackie. The second time I forgot and the third time I forgot. The fourth time I forgot and she jumped over the fence. The fifth time I remembered, but Blackie stayed behind the gate. The sixth time I forgot and Blackie chased me down the street, because I couldn’t introduce my mace to her face. Today I was ready.

Blackie lives at the end of this route. Perfect. All of the mail has been delivered, except for three houses. This means by the time I get to Blackie’s house the heaviest thing I’m carrying is my extra-large can of police grade mace.

Some postal carriers keep their mace in their pocket; I used to keep mine on my belt until Blackie chased me down the street. Now, I have a quick release holster on my mailbag. At home I practice unleashing my mace like an old west gunslinger practiced the quick draw with his Smith and Wesson. Thanks to Blackie, I can unleash my mace by the second bark.

“Rough. Rough,” Dogs once said to me.

“Rough…..damn,” The dog now says as the pepper spray attacks the cornea. According to the Los Angeles Times there have been 61 deaths attributed to the use of pepper spray. On day seven, I’m hoping Blackie becomes 62.

Because I know what to expect from Blackie, I don’t wait for the surprise attack, I have a surprise of my own. It might be fair sport to wait for Blackie to jump over the fence, kind of like in a duel when the other gunfighter would wait for the first move to the holster, but today I don’t play fair.

Three houses to go to Blackie and I pop the Velcro off my pepper spray holster. Two houses away, I take the mace out of its place and work the nozzle with my thumb ready to pounce in case Blackie decides to jump the fence. At Blackie’s house, there is no Blackie. She must be at the vet getting a finger dislodged from her throat. I re-holster the mace.

In my truck, I wipe the sweat from eyes and then drive straight to the 7-11 with one eye closed and one eye burning. The pepper spray on the tip of my finger is now in my eye. Blackie: 1. Postman: 0.